Myra Gertz was walking home from the market, a brown paper bag with a few items in one arm, when he approached. He was a towering figure, shoulders broad as a four-lane highway, in a pinstripe suit and silk tie, a pink carnation in his lapel. He purred, "Well, hello, gorgeous! Going my way?" He was in step with her, like the tick-tock of a metronome, right away, and had the gift of gab. She could hardly get a word in edgewise, just a flustered yes or a no. It was the first Saturday of September, noon, the sun blazing with a fury.
He had his left arm around her shoulders. (When did that happen?) As they walked, he slid a hand under her jacket and pinched and fondled the nipple over her heart. Her knees went weak. He guided her along until they arrived at her apartment building. "This... this is where I live..." Despite the slight chill in the air, her brow moistened.
"Wonderful!" He led her up the brownstone's steps to the entrance. She almost lost a shoe along the way. She felt dizzy and found it difficult to breathe.
As Myra fumbled with her purse, he deftly took hold of the grocery bag, bowing ever so slightly. She noticed, for the first time, he was swarthy, had a mustache, his hair was black, wavy, glistening.
Her mind was a blur as he poured on the patter.
Myra found the key, unlocked the door and he followed her down the dim hallway, to her apartment, still holding her groceries, still chatting her up to beat the band, still spinning miles and miles of tales regarding, now, Brazil. She felt as if she were there, in Rio, with him, at Carnival.
Somehow, through a dense gray fog, she managed to unlock her apartment door. She stammered, "Th-thank you f-for helping me w-with my groceries, b-but I really must say good-bye n-now."
"Why, I wouldn't hear of it!"
Before she knew it, they were in her apartment, the door closed with a barely noticeable nudge of his toe. He gently, silently, placed the groceries on the kitchen table, and ushered Myra into her bedroom.
She made no protest when he kissed her. Nor when he guided her to the bed, placed her on it, leaned her back, hiked her skirt up, pulled off her panties with amazing ease, and unzipped his trousers.
He was inside her in a flash, and in a flash they both climaxed.
Before she could think, he was up, zipping his pants, murmuring, "Say, it's been swell! You're sweeter than sugar! If you're ever in Rio, look me up!"
Then he was gone, the door closing quietly after him, his steps receding down the hall as he whistled a merry tune.
In a daze, she rose, put her undies back on, straightened her skirt, hung up her jacket, put the groceries away: bread in the breadbox, cookies in the cupboard, cream in the icebox. She thought to turn on the radio, but didn't.
She plunked down in the big brown easy chair and just sat there until a hint of dusk. Then she went to use the bathroom down the hall. Her heels made foreign sounds on the linoleum. From the old Polish man's apartment, the aroma of potatoes and cabbage frying. It was familiar, yet alien.
After she peed, she stopped at the hall payphone, considered calling Annie, her girlfriend from work. But she didn't know what to say.
Myra's mouth and throat were parched, her head buzzed, her fingers numb. She stood stock-still for a long time, staring at the phone, before going back to her apartment, getting a nickel. Taking a deep breath, she summoned the courage to drop the coin and dial. Annie picked up and said, "Hello?"
Myra said nothing.
Annie said hello several times before hanging up.
Myra returned to her room and sat in the easy chair for an hour. Then she got up, turned on the radio to a gay dance orchestra. Suddenly she wished she were with that big brute dancing at some swank club, the Copa, or any of those places you read about in the papers, but would never go to: those ritzy hotspots are for swells, the Winchell set, not working folk. (Myra saw the Copacabana once, by pure chance, en route to a job interview. It was a shock to see the legendary club. And she felt a pang of disappointment that it wasn't as big as Buckingham Palace.)
Around midnight she went to bed. She wanted to cry, but didn't have the energy.
A few weeks later, her period didn't arrive. Nor the following month. When she began to show, she quit her steno pool job, cutting her ties to Annie, her only friend.
At a pawnshop, Myra bought an engagement ring and a wedding ring and wore them. Cheapies, but effective cover. Sometimes, in an idle moment, she wondered who'd owned them, and why they pawned them. The rings must've been precious, sacred, at one time.
She whiled away her days at the library, reading magazines or staring out a dusty window at the Brooklyn skyline. And she moved to a boarding house in a distant neighborhood. She had no family, her father had been the last.
Myra had savings, and inherited a bit from her father, not a fortune, but something. She could continue without working for a year or two, maybe three if she lived really close to the bone.
In early-May, when she gave birth to the little girl, Myra was stunned to see it was black as the ace of spades! She'd been telling people at the boarding house that she was a widow, her GI husband killed in a freak accident in Okinawa. She even displayed a framed photo of herself with an old beau, in uniform, to bolster the story. Myra thought she had the bases covered, but how to explain this! She was mortified. She couldn't return to the boarding house with a Negro baby.
After her hospital stay, she rented a room in a seedy hotel a few blocks north and west of Pennsylvania Station. The next morning, after giving the baby a dose of Paregoric to keep it good and quiet, she left the newborn, rode the subway back to Canarsie and withdrew all of her savings. Then, back in Manhattan, she bought a train ticket to Flagstaff, Arizona.
For now, her entire life savings were in her purse. She clutched it tight, slept with it.
The next day Myra and the baby boarded the train. Myra kept the baby's face covered as best she could, but occasionally caught a sharp stare. In Flagstaff, Myra rented a Ford coupe and drove to the Grand Canyon. There, she wandered, baby held to her bosom, until she found a desolate spot, not a tourist in sight.
With her right hand, Myra clenched the baby by the ankles, and with all of her might, flung it, sent it sailing high into the atmosphere, the tiny body arcing up, up, up, then plummeting down, down, down. There was a distant sound of a splat.
Her stomach lurching, Myra heaved onto a patch of dry crabgrass, then made a beeline back to the parking lot, not looking up, her hat pulled low. She left unnoticed, and decided to drive to Los Angeles, there to get lost, change her name, start anew. She could always get a steno job. Or try out for the motion pictures? Why not!
She knew she could've put the little bastard up for adoption, but there was a certain satisfaction in knowing she'd finished off the spawn of the nameless Brazilian. She hoped that, somehow, he felt a stab of pain when the infant hit the rocks.
She navigated her way to Route 66, motoring west. Safely on the highway, the sun blessing her in golden rays, she removed her hat and placed it on the seat beside her. The hat was dove-gray with a neat brim. Its band held a peacock feather on the right side. Myra bought it a year or so ago, on a whim, at Macy's.